SAN FRANCISCO -- Break out the bubbly, San Francisco. This is only your second driest winter in recorded history.

A massive storm streaked the Bay Area with rain Friday, bogging down commutes from Oakland to San Jose and knocking out power to more than 55,000 PG&E customers. It also provided the parched region a symbolic victory: San Francisco will not break its 1850-51 record for driest rainfall season, according to meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services.

But Oakland and San Jose, two other cities for which there are extensive records, need another storm or two to escape the record books. And what turned out to be a rainy February won't go very far to alleviate drought concerns.

The storm dropped most of its moisture between midnight Thursday and dawn Friday before spinning down to Southern California, where rainfall totals and disruptions were far greater. The system caused major flooding on southbound Highway 87, stranded two cars on a downtown San Jose street and contributed to a fatal crash on Highway 24 that snarled morning traffic in Oakland.

The 1.08 inches that fell in San Francisco brought its seasonal total to 7.92 inches. That means the record for least amount of rainfall in San Francisco remains 7.42 inches, said Null. That mark was set during California's first year of statehood.

"It's cold comfort," Fairfax resident Christina Tom tweeted regarding the record. The wetlands restoration engineer works in San Francisco. "Our aquatic ecosystems are still in a world of hurt."

Indeed, the crispy Golden State remains in the grip of a punishing drought. Even after a reasonably wet February, the Bay Area would need to see five to 10 more significant storms by the end of April for regional rain totals to hit their historic seasonal averages.

By March 1 two-thirds or more of the region's rain has typically already fallen.

"Each storm is a bucket of water to fill up the swimming pool," Null said. "But it's an awfully big swimming pool and there's not enough of the rainfall season left to go."

And while San Francisco has avoided a depressing rainfall record, San Jose and Oakland are still in the running for their own. San Jose had 4.3 inches of rain for the season as of 4 p.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service. The city could still break the mark for driest season of 5.77 inches in 1975-76. Those records go back to 1874.

The all-time low for rain at Oakland Museum of California is 9.57 inches, also set during the infamous drought of 1975-76, according to the weather service. The total for Oakland, where records have been kept since 1970, was 5.67 inches by Friday afternoon.

It was a dramatic day of weather in Southern California. The Upper Matilija Canyon in Ventura County had 6.81 inches of rain, the most in the state. And authorities evacuated people from 1,200 homes in the hills east of Los Angeles because ofconcerns that slopes destabilized by a recent wildfire could yield mudslides.

In Glendora, which sits beneath nearly 2,000 acres of steep mountain slopes stripped by fire, a muddy soup of debris began to fill catch basins, but homes were spared. Skip loaders scraped tons of mud off a road that funneled ooze, large rocks and other debris from a dam-like catch basin below the burn area down the steep roadway.

Andrew Geleris, 59, of Pomona, spent the night with his 87-year-old mother at her home near the catch basin. "I tried to talk her into evacuating yesterday ... but she's just stubborn." But fear of mudslides in the area failed to materialize by Friday afternoon.

Beyond traffic accidents caused by slick roads, air travel was also disrupted in the Bay Area, with San Francisco International Airport canceling 139 flights by midafternoon.

The fatal accident on Highway 24 in Oakland occurred at 4:46 a.m. just east of Interstate 580 and led at least one other person to be hospitalized with minor injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Nearby in downtown Oakland, truck driver Rick Lopez spent the early morning unloading refrigerated food for a sandwich shop at Broadway and 20th Street and said his commute from Sacramento to Oakland was fairly smooth. He made the trip in 90 minutes.

"The hardest part about driving is that people jump in front of the truck and cut me off," said Lopez, "and that's really dangerous when the roads are wet because I have to slam on my brakes and can skid."

In San Mateo County, heavy rain in the early morning prompted emergency officials to issue a flash-flood warning at 7:10 a.m. in several Peninsula cities. But by 7:45 a.m. the alert had been called off, and the rest of the day was calm.

"It pretty much stopped raining," said county Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Rebecca Rosenblatt, noting no significant rain-related problems reported. "The whole county in general hasn't had any news."

Rain was more widespread in other areas of the bay and that was expected to continue with scattered showers through Saturday morning.

But that doesn't mean people should stop worrying about conserving water, said East Bay Municipal Utilities District spokeswoman Andrea Pook. Water use in the district has dropped by 4 percent since the district board asked Feb. 11 for voluntary conservation of 10 percent.

"Every drop that we save now," Pook said, "puts us in a better position when the weather dries up."

The Bay Area may see some light rain next week from storms hitting the Northwest, said National Weather Service spokesman Bob Benjamin. Long-term forecasts suggest there could be a couple storms later in March.

But at the moment, Benjamin said, "I don't see anything of real consequence in the next seven to 10 days."